'i bet if i give all my love,
then nothing's gonna tear us apart'
a habit of looking for love in the wrong people; everyone knows aubrey can't keep a woman.
everyone knows he has such a habit of kiss and tell, everyone knows he keeps getting h...
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airie clicked through on zillow, leaning her chin against her palm as she looked through different townhomes, condos, and apartments in dallas. she'd already talked to valerie, bria, and amari about moving to texas, and genuinely, the conversation was hard -- she didn't want to leave her best friends, her job, the one city she learned to love from the age of 18. in addition, she'd be moving further from huntsville and that was weighing on her enough as it was; but, there was starting to be too, too much trauma about living in atlanta. between hayden and aubrey, as much as she didn't want to associate a city with two men, it was hard to drive or walk by places that reminded her of them. it was hard enough with hayden, but with aubrey, it stung even more; ever since the incident last week at the bar, she had been over everything. granted, landon was trying his best to cheer her up and put her in a good mood, it was still something that was egging her out of atlanta, or maybe even out of the entire state in general.
granted, she'd thought about the incident at the bar, and figured that aubrey actually wasn't the one in the wrong and that at her big age of 27, she did look a little...stupid, fighting in front of all those people over someone who egged her consistently. there was always a way to do things, and maybe that wasn't the best way to do it. besides, she'd already sent her apologies to the bar and to valerie for messing up her night, but she still figured he was actually...right. once she figured out that he was right, sort of, she went and unblocked his number in hopes that she'd text him and tell him thank you or that she was sorry, but she couldn't pull herself to do it. she was still hurt over the marissa situation, and she was sure his anger was just as firey towards her.
and she wasn't wrong.
aubrey was irritated, annoyed, pissed off -- all of the above -- with her still. he didn't think she'd actually be that dense to fight her again, let alone in a public place with eyes all over the place. and he didn't think she'd be even more dense to argue with him in a parking lot like they were on some kind of teen mom episode. he at least hoped that she would try to hear him out through her anger, but obviously understood that she was angry, still, and that while two and a half months had passed, it wasn't enough to still her hurt heart. truthfully, he wanted to reach out to her and ask her to coffee or dinner so they could talk and come to some kind of middle ground; to say he missed her was quite literally an understatement. sex and personal pleasure aside, he missed their conversations, he missed going out on little dates with her, he missed making her watch horror movies just so she'd cling to him in fear everytime something happened, he missed when she'd wake him up at three-in-the-morning to talk about her fears and the things she worried about.
his finger hovered over the letters on the bottom-half of his screen to type out a message -- he didn't know what he was going to type, but he knew he wanted to say something to her.
yet, nothing came about.
he sighed and pressed the lock button on his phone, running a hand over his head; he didn't know how to get her back. he didn't know where to start. talking to her friends would lead to a dead-end, talking to deelo would probably lead to one too, since he was pre-occupied with his little one on the way, going up to her job would probably prove useless because she'd probably send security to escort him out. the only other thing he could think of would be...talking to her brother. that would mean that he would have to explain to her brother what he did and he knew that would be an earful; this was the man airie considered a second father to her, she respected him and his opinion more than anything, and if he told her to leave his little sister the hell alone, then he would have no choice but to leave her alone and try to move on.
so, he whipped out his phone again and scrolled through his contacts, coming across armond's name. he inhaled and exhaled very slowly as he pressed the call button, holding it up to his ear.
the phone rung one, two, three times before armond picked up, the distant sound of machinery churning in the background.
"hey, armond it's-"
"aubrey, hey," armond spoke, the sound of a door closing being heard as armond stepped into a side room away from the machinery he was operating at the moment. "wassup?"
aubrey hesitated for a moment before speaking, stretching back against his couch before speaking, "well...i'm sure you know airie and i split."
"i do, i do. you calling me to get back with her or something?"
"actually, yea," he answered, his voice a bit shaky as he ran a hand over the top of his head again and cleared his throat. "i know, i fucked up, i kissed my kid's mom, we had this blow-out argument at the bar, so i'm forreal sure that she doesn't want to see me or even breathe near me-"
"she doesn't. she might want to, but she won't and she doesn't. look," he paused to look in the window of the door before returning his ear back into his phone, "if you got some time, come down to huntsville so we can talk face-to-face. i'm real indifferent on talking over the phone, especially about my little sister, so i'll cut you some slack. you really want her back, i'll send you my address so we can talk. aight?"
aubrey blinked; was this some kind of set-up? he had never been in this kind of situation, let alone somebody's brother ending up being some kind of middle-man between him and the girl he was talking to. he exhaled slowly and soon agreed, "aight, bet. i'll pop down this friday."
"bet. catch you," armond answered just before hanging up the phone. aubrey pursed his lips once the phone disconnected; granted, he knew he wasn't in any kind of danger, but this was something he had never done before. while he hadn't gotten the chance to meet her father, armond was the next best person to being her father figure; she always talked about him like he was her dad or that he had qualities similar to her dad and he always feared armond...a little. not a lot, but just a little. he tossed his phone to the side and leaned his head against the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling; was he really going this far for one woman? besides, they'd broken up and fought so much, was it really even worth it?
maybe it was, because of the way she couldn't leave his mind ever since he saw her in the baby store, the way sometimes he would still find little bits of her clothes mingled in with his or find something of her stashed away in the cabinet, or when he'd eat something that they'd ate together before and be reminded of her. it felt like airie had a string around him that he couldn't cut, he couldn't even loosen it. he was tied to her in a way that even he couldn't understand it.
his phone buzzed with a text from armond as he sat on the couch with his address, aubrey feeling his stomach drop just a little bit. he was dead serious, and he was just as serious about getting back together with her; that didn't help the nerves he had running through his system like a tomb raider.
airie scooted back from her desk and sighed softly, running a hand over the side of her neck before tapping on her business email, checking on her site traffic, orders, any customer service questions. now that she was thoroughly frustrated, she wanted to dive into her work, something that would preoccupy her mind for the time being. just as she prepared to finish answering a few order inquiries, she got a call from landon. blowing out a sigh, she tapped the green button and plugged in a headphone, speaking after, "hey, landon, what's up?"
"how do you feel about going to dinner this saturday? i made us some reservations."
she felt her stomach turn a little; she really didn't want to see him, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings or make him feel bad; he was such a sweetheart and she felt bad about still missing aubrey, regardless of what he'd done to her.
"sure, sure. i'm out of office this weekend so that sounds good to me. what time?"
"i set it for eight, if that's cool with you...?"
"that's perfect. i'll talk to you later," she answered softly, saying their goodbyes and soon hanging up, airie eventually plopping down onto her desk. frustrations aside, she didn't know what to feel at the moment, or even how to feel at the moment; the most she could hope for is that she could comfortably get over aubrey like she had been doing.
